Map fro the 28th Congressional Session, 1848, of distances between federal outposts in the American Southwest (LOC). The published...

I have never seen Mansura, Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, well-represented on any map prior to satellite data. But we can figure out why...

The Red River Valley above Fulton/ Clarksville / Fort Towson was not fully mapped until after the Civil War. The first regional mapping...

The Oklahoma Historical Society has an unbelievable amount of photographs that only occasionally see the light of day. Their photos,...

Jefferson, the county seat of Marion County, Texas, became an inland port after the first federal Red River raft (massive log jam)...

Due to work related activities, I've been nosing around Gainesville (Cooke County, Texas) lately. The city was founded as a settlement in...

Texas likes that it's big, and between 1860 and 1894, it was actually a million and a half acres larger than it is today. That's because...

Vial's "Spanish Road" route begins in Natchitoches and passes by homes and ranches of traders/planters. It mentions several...

One of the least studied but apparently, major trade arteries emanating from the Red River was the so-called "Great Spanish Road" that...

This map, published in Annaberg (Saxony), explained the relative location of Texas and the roads and trails that led to the California...

In 1937, George Conrad, Jr. was interviewed by the WPA's Federal Writer's Project. Born in slavery on February 23, 1860 at Connversville,...

Founded in 1867, Fort Griffin (Shackleford County, Texas) is now a state historic site with lots of scenic ruins on a mesquite-heavy...

Every Veteran's Day - aka Armistice Day - I like to post about a Great War (WWI) veteran because these men hoped that this was the "war...

Since 1880s at least, and most likely at least two decades prior, the corner of State/ East Fourth/ Sam Rayburn and North Chestnut...

When Sam Rayburn, U.S. Speaker of the House from Bonham (Fannin County, Texas), proposed the flood control project for the Red River at...

Sometime in the 1990s, the federal program called Historic Buildings Survey (HABS) documented the Coincoin- Prudhomme home along the Cane...

A broadly circulated description of Louisiana explained how travelers could get to Mexico from Natchez, Mississippi, and this 1814 map...

In 1834, George Catlin accompanied the first dragoon expedition, helmed by Generals Henry Dodge and Henry Leavenworth, from Kansas into...

Two miles south of Blevins (Hempstead County, Arkansas) along the old Blevins to Washington Road, once sat the Blevins Training School, a...

In the 1820s, the Blevins family built a primitive, two story home without the use of nails in today's Hempstead County, Arkansas. This...